Word Clock

Description: This hack modifies a Ribba-Frame into a word-clock that displays the time in words.

1. Drill holes in the back-plate of the Ribba-Frame for the LEDs.

2. Solder the LEDs to a grid where anodes and cathodes get shared in each row and column.

3. Make a proof-of-concept on a breadboard. The rows and columns get multiplexed with shift-registers (instructions can easily be found with Google). The ‘heart’ of the clock is a ATmega328-MCU. Time is kept by a real-time-clock and updated by the german DCF77-radio-signal.

4. Solder your working clock on circuit boards, place them in the frame, connect the LEDs.

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The Author

Jules IKEAHacker "I am Jules, the engine behind IKEAHackers and the one who keeps this site up and running. My mission is to capture all the wonderful, inspiring, clever hacks and ideas for our much loved IKEA items".

Seriously though, while impressive, this project is not an “Ikea hack”. It is something inserted into an Ikea picture frame (and could be inserted in any other), and in the “Ikea hack” context not really much more than inserting a picture.

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